This is a bit unfortunate, because the kindle paperwhite is just phenomenal. It's easy on my eyes and it's a godsend for traveling. I suppose the solution here is to just keep it in offline mode when not syncing books. [edit] as others have noted, it's possible to permanently use offline mode, and transfer books via usb cable. > Unfortunately, in order to use a non-Kindle application, I have to buy DRM-Free books. On…
Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
51–60 of 393 posts
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#52As a former Kindle developer, I can say that most of what's mentioned in this article are metrics used to understand how the features are used (bookmarks, highlights, dictionnary, etc.), how much they are used, and in which country. This allows the teams to focus on features that are actively used, and sometimes lead to discontinuing features that see little to no use. Hope that helps.
I think the privacy-concerned end-user thinks, "Yes, I completely understand why this information is being tracked and how it would be useful to Amazon. But I still don't like it."
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Kindle handles .mobi and .azw3. It is trivial to convert EPUB to MOBI before you send the book to the device over USB (it can even be done as part of a command-line script, for example).
Having to deal with the .epub conversion was the main reason I ditched my Voyage and got a Kobo Aura One instead.
Why ditch a device just for that reason? Again, the OP assumes that one will transfer books to the device over USB for privacy’s sake. In this case, creating a shell wrapper around cp to automatically convert any EPUB to MOBI upon copying the file (naming the command, say, kindlecp) is trivial.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#54I formed my opinion before clicking the article, already working out some comments in my mind like "who's surprised?" After reading the article though, surprisingly my opinion changed. This doesn't seem all that bad. I don't doubt that Amazon is over-collecting, but the samples he posted seem like it's just information for syncing reading position and settings. Of all the nefarious things Amazon does with data, I don't think that's one of them.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#55This is only one reason why I absolutely love my Kobo Aura HD, it's never been connected to WiFi. Its storage device is a standard SD card which can be swapped for a larger one. Oh, and it's not giving money to Amazon which is always a big win for me. It also happens to be a super nice piece of kit, and it has my warmest recommendations.
My kindle is in airplane mode since I opened its box and I send books to it via usb. No one is forcing you to use amazon services, I didn't even pay for the ad free version but I've never seen an ad.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#56How are the alternatives. Although i will miss my collection of books but I'm going to be in the market for the next ebook reader.
Kobo's have comparable (even superior, IMO) hardware to the Kindle line. The thing that everyone who migrates from Kindle to Kobo seems to get hung up on is that it does not have an option to wirelessly sync books that have been sideloaded across devices. This is because Kobo does not give everyone a private cloud like Amazon does (I imagine it would be prohibitively expensive to do so for anyone but Amazon). It's no…
I don't see why that should be expensive/difficult. Ebooks are mostly small files. It would be hard to ramp up a gigabyte unless you end up with image laden items such as pdfs.
Synching can be an issue. I had a one of the early kindles, and it was fine until I hit a few hundred items. It would re-index and be completely unresponsive for 10minutes at a go. That could have been done cloud side. In the end I decided I needed to purge loads of documents/titles to get it useful again. But accidentally sat on it. So game over. Moved to a simple Nook and SDCard loads.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#57Why would you leave on wifi on an e-ink kindle, when not actively downloading a book? The battery lasts 3-4x as long with it disabled (on my 3rd gen device at least). I doubt most users need a real-time sync of their book location to the cloud, unless they read on multiple devices. Also, if you use the kindle to get loaned/library books on this particular model, they aren't removed even if the due-date is exceeded un…
> Why would you leave on wifi on an e-ink kindle, when not actively downloading a book?
One of the much-advertised features of the Kindle is its ability to highlight a word and look it up against a dictionary, against Wikipedia, or against the web.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#58Maybe I am getting less fervent about privacy and data security but I don't see these metrics as PII.
This is a complete whataboutism but you gave Amazon a lot more information when you purchased the kindle from them.
I think the answer is Amazon should add an option to turn this off.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#59As a former Kindle developer, I can say that most of what's mentioned in this article are metrics used to understand how the features are used (bookmarks, highlights, dictionnary, etc.), how much they are used, and in which country. This allows the teams to focus on features that are actively used, and sometimes lead to discontinuing features that see little to no use. Hope that helps.
Privacy concerns are usually about how information could be misused, not how it's used right now or routinely.
Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data
#60As a former Kindle developer, I can say that most of what's mentioned in this article are metrics used to understand how the features are used (bookmarks, highlights, dictionnary, etc.), how much they are used, and in which country. This allows the teams to focus on features that are actively used, and sometimes lead to discontinuing features that see little to no use. Hope that helps.
Yeah I came here to say the same. I'm about as tin-foil-paranoid-privacy-all-the-things as they come, but the "invasive" data mentioned in the post don't seem particularly invasive to me, and collecting that data seems perfectly appropriate for the purposes you mentioned.
With all that said, I do dream of a PINE64 E Ink device (or something that's open and hackable).